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Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

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Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#391

Post by darkstar_16 »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #83
TulliusCicero wrote: post #18

Autonomy subscriptions are how things are going to go, I called this a long time ago. It makes too much sense in terms of continuous development and operations/support to not have a subscription -- and subscriptions will likely double as insurance at some point in the future (once the car is driving itself 100% of the time, and liability is always with the self driving stack anyway). Of course, people won't like this…

Agreed, it seems inevitable that autonomy and insurance are going to be bundled. 1. Courts are finding Tesla partially liable for collisions, so they've already got some of the downsides of insurance (aka the payout) without the upside (the premium). 2. Waymo data shows a significant injury reduction rate. If it's true and not manipulated data, it's natural for the car companies to want to capture some of this upside…

I actually I'd be even willing to downgrade my car one level if I'm not driving and just sitting in the back seat. Will likely be cheaper for me to own even with the increased subscription.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#392

Post by TulliusCicero »

echelon wrote: post #318
stephen_g wrote: post #274

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Public transit is a dream turned nightmare consistently for seventy-five years *In the United States. For reasons we have avoided in much of the rest of the world...

The United States is freaking huge. By the time modern transportation arrived, people were already living all over the country in pockets every which where. We opted for cars and planes to cover the vast distances. And as it turns out, we have some of the best in the world of both of these - and in vast quantities. We do have dense pockets. NYC, in particular, has a nice metro (it just needs to be cleaner and more mo…

> The United States is freaking huge. By the time modern transportation arrived, people were already living all over the country in pockets every which where. We opted for cars and planes to cover the vast distances. And as it turns out, we have some of the best in the world of both of these - and in vast quantities.

You have this narrative precisely backwards.

At the risk of pointing out the obvious: the great sprawl that made us dependent on cars happened after cars got popularized.

Yes, the cities were already spread out relative to each other, but that distance can be covered with trains well enough. What made us need cars, and what cars encouraged, was a huge amount of spread within a city or metro area. If you sprawl out over a city such that population density is constantly low, then public transit and walking can't work effectively anymore, and everyone needs to own a car.

US cities that were already large and well populated before the advent of cars tend to be densely built. Their cores, at least, are walkable as a result. This is true even for non-major cities -- just google "streetcar suburbs" as an example.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#393

Post by RealityVoid »

AlotOfReading wrote: post #299
dymk wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could have a better driving assistance package than 99% of other cars on the road for 1/10 the price by using OpenPilot as the LKAS, or installing a Comma in the car. Real shame nobody has taken that approach, not even a fork

Comma had made essentially no efforts to meet the requirements of automotive systems the last time I looked at them. They would be an incredibly risky supplier for systems that could easily come under regulatory scrutiny.

That's not completely true.

https://github.com/commaai/openpilot/blob/master/docs/SAFETY...

It's an... interesting approach, They essentially reduce the surface area as much as possible. I don't buy that it's enough, but, again, interesting to see what they do.

Besides, a big OEM could pour an army of developers and turn the Comma approach into an ASIL D, it would be quite a lot of work but within the realm of possibility.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#394

Post by bjord »

ChuckMcM wrote: post #158
bjord wrote: post #2

is everyone designing their own silicon getting so much additional them-specific utility out of it that it's actually worth it?

I was just in a discussion on this very topic. It's the build vs buy equation applied to silicon. Early in the tech boom the entire silicon stack was proprietary and required a lot of time and investment to train up people who could design the circuitry, we got our first "ASICS" which was basically a bunch of circuitry on a die and you then added your own metal layer so it was like having a bunch of components glued…

very interesting. thanks for sharing!

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#395

Post by ryan_lane »

dzhiurgis wrote: post #320
ryan_lane wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You must be an American, because plenty of trains exist to bring people to nature elsewhere. You know, when you drive a car to a nature place, you put it into a parking lot, then you are no longer in the car, right? Same works for trains.

Low density places exist outside america. You should check them out.

I have. A lot of them have trains!

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#396

Post by SideburnsOfDoom »

bobthepanda wrote: post #386
Karrot_Kream wrote: post #236

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I doubt autonomous car makers will offer this themselves. They'll either partner with existing insurers or try to build a separate insurance provider of their own which does this. My guess, if this actually plays out, is that existing insurers will create a special autonomy product that will modify rates to reflect differences in risk from standard driving, and autonomy subscriptions will offer those in a bundle.

Bundling a real product with a financial institution is a time tested strategy. Airlines with their credit cards are basically banks that happen to fly planes. Starbucks' mobile app is a bank that happens to sell coffee. Auto companies have long had financing arms; if anything, providing insurance on top of a lease is the natural extension of that.

> Auto companies have long had financing arms

I have in fact heard it said that VW group is a financing company with a automobile arm. From some points of view, that seems correct.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#397

Post by simondotau »

ActorNightly wrote: post #127
cyode wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

CarPlay and affordability. I was totally smitten last year with the R1S during a test drive. I'm not a car person but felt that spark people must feel when they obsess over their vehicles. But it wasn't pushing-six-figures smitten, which is where you're at when you get a new one with customizations.

>afforadbility This 1000%. Electric cars are supposed to be simple. Give me something in a shape of a Civic, with the engine replaced with a motor and a battery good for 150 miles, and sell it for $10-12k new. Don't even need an entertainment cluster, give me a place to put a tablet or a phone and just have a bluetooth speaker. Instead, we are getting these boutique, expensive vehicles packed full of tech, but in the…

> Electric cars are supposed to be simple.

The only part an EV doesn't have is the engine and gearbox. Admittedly, these are pretty major components, but it's a technology mature enough to be extremely reliable if the manufacturer cares to make it so.

But what an EV has instead is a massive battery, charging electronics, a DC-DC converter keeping the 12V battery charged, and various electric motors and actuators for the air conditioning and coolant loops. These are significant more reliable than oily engines in lab environments, but the automotive environment tests the mettle of seemingly resilient components.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#398

Post by simondotau »

fragmede wrote: post #268
ActorNightly wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>afforadbility This 1000%. Electric cars are supposed to be simple. Give me something in a shape of a Civic, with the engine replaced with a motor and a battery good for 150 miles, and sell it for $10-12k new. Don't even need an entertainment cluster, give me a place to put a tablet or a phone and just have a bluetooth speaker. Instead, we are getting these boutique, expensive vehicles packed full of tech, but in the…

Unfortunately federal standards now require the backup camera, so the entertainment cluster comes along basically for free from that.

The cost of the entertainment cluster comes from the integration work. If it was just a backup camera and a carplay/aa head unit and absolutely nothing else then maybe it could be OEMed from the same companies who sell aftermarket systems for $100 or so.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#399

Post by simondotau »

octorian wrote: post #276
nicksergeant wrote: post #11

Meanwhile, the only thing people really want from Rivian is CarPlay / Android Auto support, lol.

This might be an unpopular opinion, but I'll take a car infotainment system that doesn't need CarPlay/AndroidAuto to be usable (and lacks it) over one that requires a phone attached via CarPlay/AndroidAuto to be usable. I use Android Auto on rental cars all the time. My daily driver is a Tesla (Model S /w MCU v2) that doesn't have it. And doesn't need it to provide a usable experience.

I've only rented Teslas but I can see how most people would consider CP/AA to be unnecessary given the quality of their integrated software. But for me, the two things Tesla can't do (and CP/AA can) is

1. Waze;

2. My preferred third-party podcasting app.

Re: Rivian Unveils Custom Silicon, R2 Lidar Roadmap, and Universal Hands Free

#400

Post by simondotau »

sofixa wrote: post #46
frankfrank13 wrote: post #25

Is there some tight coupling on autonomy + electric cars? Seems the only 2 viable hands-free car companies are Tesla and Rivian. I don't see myself ever getting an electric car, but it doesn't seem like the big car companies are anywhere near this.

No, the only Level 3 self-driving system is Drive Pilot by Mercedes. They have it on the S-Class and EQS sedans, so one ICE/hybrid and one EV. It even comes with legal liability for the car manufacturer, that's how confident they are in the tech. None of this kind of hopium: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_predictions_for_autono...

It's not real L3, it's marketing department L3. Two years after launch it's still only supported in two US states. Now that Mercedes got their headline, it's effectively abandonware.

If it was real L3, Drive Pilot would be considered the vehicle operator for legal purposes. Mercedes would take full responsibility for any driving infringements or collisions that occur during its use. In reality, Mercedes cannot indemnify you from driving infringements, and for collisions they only promise to cover "insurance costs" which probably doesn't include any downstream reputational consequences of making an insurance claim.

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